Chapter 16: Chapter 14: The expedition

The day of the expedition arrived.

We were a group of 31 people. 20 warriors, 10 archers, and me.

When i arrived they looked at me weirdly, probably because I was not carrying too much luggage with me, even for such a long trip.

I just shrugged.

As I already have everything I need at my inventory, the things I have currently on my luggage are just clothes and some small tools for collecting herbs.

Unlike the game, gathering herbs was a bit more difficult in reality, every herb had a different method when gathering it.

For example, when gathering Daybloom all you need to do is to cut the herb.

Not hard at all.

However, when gathering Shiverthorn you needed to take the whole plant out of the ground, with roots and all.

And it gets even harder, because Shiverthorns are actually arraigned very deeply to the ground, making it  more difficult to take out. Even more so when the plant is actually very fragile and if you exert more strength than necessary it shatters.

So actual herb gathering was a pain in the ass.

However, I don't have much option but to do it anyways if I want to get the rewards of this mission.

 

---

We traveled across many cities and villages, and it was honestly quite refreshing not receiving hostile glares all the time.

Since no one knew me in these places, I was not the evil guy anymore.

Maybe i could move to one of these places when i got strong enough?

Anyways, it was really a peaceful trip, it almost felt like vacations for me. although there were some problems like slimes getting on our way sometimes, it was still peaceful nonetheless.

We continued traveling for almost three days while stopping in some cities to resupply our resources, and before I knew it we finally arrived at the mountains.

The place looked pretty desolate, there were some trees across the snowy field and some ice slimes jumping around happily. However, apart from all that there were no traces of civilization in this place.

"All right Sir Aspen, from here on we are counting on you" said whom seemed to be the leader of the warriors

"Yeah, leave it to me"  I said and started walking on front of the whole group.

It actually took an hour or so to find just one Shiverthorn, something that was not what I expected.

I've read and heard that shiverthorn herbs exist in abundance through the snow, so it shouldn't be this hard to collect this herb...

However, i just ignored the matter and just considered it bad luck.

Sadly, I soon realized that it wasn't just bad luck. It was something more.

We continued walking for hours, however in the end we ended gathering three more shiverthorn herbs.

"It's strange..." I said while masagging my chin.

"What it's strange sir?" The captain of the group said when he heard me muttering to myself

"As far as the books dictate, there should be a lot more of shiverthorn herbs around here, however, there's almost none of it"

While i explained the situation to the captain, I suddenly heard a small scream from behind us.

"Uwaaaah!" 

When I turned around to see what happened I saw that one of the archers fell to the ground, probably he tripped himself.

His companions helped him to get up, and when I was about to ignore the matter I noticed something in the place where he tripped.

This is...

I walked towards that place and started inspecting it.

The place in which the archer tripped himself had a small hole in the ground under all the snow.

However, what was actually strange was that this hole is exactly the way the ground looks after you perform the process of gathering a shiverthorn herb.

This means someone collected a shiverthorn from here

"Everyone, I need you to help me to clean all the snow in the area!" I yelled at the group.

They looked at me strangely, however, they still followed my orders.

Could it be that someone collected almost all the shiverthorn herbs in this area, leaving us with almost nothing?

Sigh...

Why does this only happen when I'm getting paid for it...?

 

---

 

Near the place our protagonist currently was, inside a dark cave illuminated by the light of some torches, two silhouettes could be seen inside, one was prostrating itself in front of the other that was sitting in a dignified manner on a throne.

If you looked closely, you could see that both people were wearing blue robes with yellow marks all over it, and had their faces covered by a black mask, leaving only their glowing yellow eyes at sight.

However, the robes of the man currently sitting in the throne looked more expensive than the ones of the other man.

"Sir, we have confirmed that they entered the territory, shall we proceed with our plan?" The kneeling man said to the one in front of him.

"Proceed as we planned, if this doesn't kill them then the night will, after all it will take them a few hours to take care of this matter, and when they finish, the night will have already descended. You will collect their dead bodies tomorrow morning, so that we can give them as a sacrifice to our lord" The man in said with a deep and dignified voice.

"Yes sir!"

"You are dismissed" The man said while gesturing with his hand for the other man to leave.

When the kneeling man left, a sigh could be heard across the room.

"Just a bit more, just a bit more and salvation shall descend to this world, the salvation that we had all been waiting for, the salvation that some may not want, but the salvation that we need nonetheless. Oh, great Cthulhu protect us from any problem or harm that may arise to stop your arrival to this world once again, grant me the strength and powers to continue this dangerous quests you gave me."

*Drip*

You are reading story Am I the Player? Surviving in Terraria as the only existence at novel35.com

*Drip*

*Drip*

The sound of liquid dripping to the floor could be heard coming from behind the throne in which the man was sitting right now.

What was behind it, was a horrible scene taken out directly from a horror movie, a huge mountain of bodies could be seen hanging face down with their heads decapitated, the blood that fell from their bodies entered directly into what seemed to be a small pearl. The hollow screams of the dead echoing around it and the crimson color that slowly started covering the pearl could have scared even the most brave person in the world.

When the man stopped praying, his eyes seemed to lost focus, and he started repeating the same words again and again.

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

"Salvation"

 

...

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Aspen POV once again.

So I was right.

Someone grabbed every Shiverthorn in this place.

...

Goddammit!

Then I won't be able to get the [necromantic sorcery] magic tome?!

Ahh, F*ck! What was the purpose of this trip then?!

Sigh...

I looked towards the sky.

Better leave my problems for tomorrow...

It was already getting late, so we better go to the nearest village in these mountains.

"Hey, how far is the nearest village around here?" I asked the captain. 

"It should be at least 5 kilometers at the east from here on" He answered while pointing with his finger in the direction where the village was.

"All right we will rest there for the night, and then we will go back to the city, Tell your men that we are leaving" I said to him as it doesn't make any sense to keep trying looking for more shiverthorn herbs when they probably have already been collected by someone else, so might as well go back to tell them the situation.

"Yes sir"

While the captain was telling all of his men what we were going to do now, I caught a glimpse of a human silhouette .

No...

It wasn't just one person

I saw a lot of people on top of a cliff above us.

I narrowed my eyes and rapidly alerted the captain and his men.

That's when i saw it, They had seven ice slimes captive inside enormous cages.

And the slimes seemed enraged, hitting everything and bending the bars of the cages with just sheer force.

That's when I heard them scream something at each other.

"FREE THEM!"

They opened the cages and freed the ice slimes, throwing them at us from above.

While i prepared myself to fight, I looked at one of the falling slimes and its status showed to me.

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